John Sergeant

John Sergeant (5 December 1779-23 November 1852) was a member of the US House of Representatives (F-PA 1) from 10 October 1815 to 3 March 1823 (succeeding Jonathan Williams and preceding Samuel Breck) and from PA-2 from 4 March 1827 to 3 March 1829 (succeeding Thomas Kittera and preceding Daniel H. Miller) and from 4 March 1837 to 15 September 1841 (interrupting Joseph Reed Ingersoll's terms).

Biography
John Sergeant was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1779 to a family of prominent politicians, and he was admitted to the bar in 1799 and practiced for 50 years. In 1800, he became deputy attorney general for Philadelphia and then served in the State House from 1808 to 1810 and in the US House of Representatives from 1815 to 1823, from 1827 to 1829, and from 1837 to 1841. Sergeant was a strong supporter of Henry Clay's American System and the National Bank, and he was a strong opponent of slavery who voted against the Missouri Compromise. In 1825, he served as President of the Pennsylvania Board of Canal Commissioners, and he was Clay's vice-presidential running mate in 1832, losing to Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren in a landslide. In 1844, he lost the Whig vice-presidential contest to Theodore Frelinghuysen, and he died in 1852.